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Florida man indicted in Billerica home invasion

By Lisa Redmond, lredmond@lowellsun.com

Updated:
01/29/2013 12:36:54 AM EST

LOWELL -- A 49-year-old Florida man has been indicted on home-invasion charges after police say he assaulted a Billerica homeowner with a metal level, then taunted police, who were forced to tase him five times to subdue him last November.

Bryce Hardy, of Palm Harbor, Fla., was indicted Friday on charges of home invasion (two counts), assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a dangerous weapon (three counts), vandalizing property and resisting arrest.

No arraignment date has been scheduled in Superior Court.

At Hardy's Lowell District Court arraignment in November, prosecutors allege that at 3:25 a.m. on Nov. 16, Billerica police responded to a Pond Street home for a report of an unknown male banging on the door. The homeowners told police they were asleep when they heard someone kicking their front door yelling, "Where is Lindsay. I know she is there," Perlman said. No one by that name lives at that address.

At one point after kicking the front door, Perlman said Hardy gained access to the house.

Hardy allegedly punched the homeowner in the face several times and assaulted him with the metal level. The homeowner ran upstairs and called police.

When police arrived they said they saw Hardy holding a 4-foot metal level. Officers ordered him to drop the level, but Hardy laughed at the officers, prosecutors allege.

Police tased Hardy, but he held on to the level and walked toward the officers "holding (it) like a bat," according to prosecutors.

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Police again tased Hardy, hitting him in the left shoulder and abdomen, but he held on to the level and kicked at police, "smiling and laughing at them," prosecutors allege.

Days after his arrest, a Lowell District Court judge ordered Hardy held without bail to undergo a competency evaluation. The results of that evaluation are not known.

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